When a Woman Falls in Love
by Aspire2B
Summary: "When a girl truly falls in love, her feelings don't change so easily." Sakura Haruno knew how true those words were. Hinata, Temari, Ino and Karui, all realize it as well as they contemplate exactly when it was they fell in love. ( Shikatema, Saiino, Sasusaku, Naruhina, and ChoKarui )
1. When a Woman Falls in Love

_"When a girl truly falls in love, her feelings don't change that easily." – Sakura Haruno_

* * *

 _When Temari falls in love…_

She analyzes the situation, searches for flaws, strengthens weaknesses, and explores the foreign emotions. She is not easily shaken. Even though she believes in real love, the practical kind – not just the stuff of fairy tales and happily-ever-after, she hesitates. In a relationship she knows she would be intense, demanding perfection – not always achievable – but she figured that she would be doing most of the work anyway.

She knows she will only fall in love once. She doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve. The only reason she has plunged in so deeply is because she had thought long and hard.

Independent and strong, Temari doesn't cling to anyone. She doesn't always express emotions naturally and this makes her appear reserved and even a bit standoffish at times. She masks her vulnerable feelings with jibes and teasing.

When she calls him a crybaby it's because she's uncomfortable expressing her own fragility. And Temari finds it difficult to emotionally open up and let just anyone close. Making new friends and committing to relationships can be a problem. She easily makes acquaintances, but it takes her time when establishing true friendships

They are true friends.

Temari was particular and picky when it came to choosing her partner. This was probably a good thing. If she were too impulsive, she probably would have settled for someone in her own village.

She enjoys making him happy, so when she asks what she can do for him, she honestly wants to know. She would rather be single than be with the wrong person, holding out for Mr. Perfect, not just Mr. Right. This is not to say that she expects him to be inhumanly perfect, she just wants someone who will suit her.

Despite gaining a reputation for being cruel and gutsy, she is modest. Her insecure reaction to finding out her feelings were requited would surprise many people. She wonders what he sees in her. Temari likes herself, but because she sees all of her flaws so clearly, she worries that she might not live up to his expectations.

He'll need to provide a lot of reassurance over the long term. On the other hand, if she ever suspected him of being insincere with his compliments or that he was just saying things because he felt obliged too, she would leave.

No wonder he calls her troublesome.

She just wants him to be honest and frank. He needs to show her that he could love her at her worst as well as at her best.

People have told her she needs to learn how to lighten up. While she is quite brilliant and can master almost anything she sets her mind to, and small talk is one of those things she can learn to do well, it doesn't come naturally. Years of being a diplomat have hardwired the skill into her.

She isn't a girl who can whisper sweet nothings or make flirtatious comments. Every word that comes out of her mouth sounds like challenge. But he knows what she truly means.

He's smarter than she is. And that fact used to anger her so much she didn't even know what to do with herself. Perhaps it was because he didn't look the part.

She loves him but he isn't an impressive looking man. That massive intellect is hidden behind a lazy, unsuspecting exterior. Over time, she learns more about his character and comes to appreciate how humble he is.

So this is love, huh?

* * *

 _When Ino falls in love…_

Her mind is filled with pictures of paper hearts and fresh flowers.

She is someone who truly appreciates beauty. And, in her mind, love was the epitome of beauty.

Unlike some girls, she is scrupulously impartial and painfully honest. When he does something unconventional, which is often, she is not afraid to call him out on it. She thinks they are the perfect for each other.

She loves talking and he likes to listen. When she gets too heated in an argument, he can remain objective.

Ino is utterly devoted to him, despite her long time unrequited childhood love for another dark haired man. She wouldn't have taken the time to teach him about social cues and relationships if she hadn't completely moved on. Despite being emotionally delayed he isn't distant or cold.

She finds him endearing. He looks at the world through the eyes of a child.

It's no secret that she could have almost any man she wanted. Ino knew she had been blessed with amazing features and a gift for chatting up strangers. But most men were attracted by her appearance alone.

He was very unusual. He had hardly any knowledge about how people interacted with each other. That was probably how she had fallen in love. He was so unassuming and she could easily be herself without worrying that he would judge her; he wouldn't know any better.

She loves that he really tries to understand her. Most people take one look and decide that she is just another pretty face. They know her as Inoichi's daughter and nothing else. But he wanted to know her interests, what she was like as a kid and how she grew up. They can spend hours talking about one subject, well, she could spend hours trying to explain one subject. What was incredible about that was she actually enjoyed it.

The two of them are meticulous people. Although she can't draw, she appreciates how he can capture every distinct detail of the flowers in their shop. He compliments her arrangements.

They could talk about everything and nothing. She hoped that one day he could understand love and share it with her.

* * *

 _When Sakura falls in love…_

She is very young. The first time she sees him, she is ashamed to admit, that her childhood crush developed because she thought he was cool. All that time she spent chasing after him as a child, she didn't count that as true love.

It was more like idolization.

When she truly fell in love they were genin and he had just saved her life.

There was no denying that she was a medic through and through. Sakura was tough but she was also a bleeding heart. She wanted to heal everyone. And although he carried himself with pride, he was the most damaged person she had ever seen. And just when she had started to discover his pain, began to see him as more than a handsome face, he disappeared.

And she never stopped loving him.

Sakura had only ever loved one person her whole life but she claimed to have to different types of love, her childhood love and adult love. Now that she was older, she was strong, accomplished and not naïve to the things he had done. Even after everything, she still had to give him another chance. He had become more powerful but she could still see fragments of her old teammate.

She could see his uncertainty and sadness but he was somehow less angry.

She had cried for him, for both of them after the war. His body was mangled but his mind finally seemed clear. He had apologized and, maybe it had been her imagination, smiled at her. Sitting on a chair, next to his bed in the hospital, she wondered if he had ever had any feelings for her that went beyond a teammate or makeshift family member. Was she still that useless girl who preened herself in vain to catch his eye?

His rehabilitation went quickly. Neither of them talked about the past. The words she wanted to say were on the tip of her tongue. But she couldn't make herself ask. Soon he was leaving the village, leaving her, again.

Sakura realized that this wasn't like last time. He needed this. Her heart still ached. That was the trouble with love; it didn't care how hard you fell.

Standing at the gates, she mustered up the courage. Well, maybe she didn't explicitly ask him. She had posed it as a theoretical question, the possibility of accompanying him on his journey of retribution.

He had shot her down. But he had promised to see her when he got back. And she would wait for him.

She would always wait.

And she never stopped loving him.

* * *

 _When Hinata falls in love…_

She knew most people wouldn't understand.

He was an outcast, someone the villagers steered clear of. At the time, she didn't understand why they did so but it didn't matter. Before everyone else, she knew how brave he was and most importantly how he never gave up on anyone.

He was everything she wasn't when they were children. She was shy and her skills as a shinobi were weak. But even though they had hardly exchanged more than a couple of words he had spoken up for her when no one else would.

Despite being so perceptive with others, he remained clueless of her affections for several years.

Ask anyone, they would tell you that she was the most patient person they had ever met. Hinata had waited even longer for him than Sakura had for Sasuke. For so long, she was so afraid to reveal her true feelings.

It's embarrassing how she can only manage a stutter when he's around. And she hates how red her face gets whenever he moves closer to her.

He seemed more suited for a confidant girl. But even if it was impossible for the two of them to be together, she couldn't stop loving him.

After the war, when people finally started to recognize the man she knew he had always been, Hinata had been slightly discouraged. Girls, beautiful and charismatic, flocked towards him. Everything was going wrong. Disaster stuck, Hanabi was taken and the whole world was in jeopardy again. She had wanted to confess to him that night, with the scarf she had knitted so carefully. Every ounce of her had been poured into the process of its creation.

But it was not to be.

Just like when Pein attacked the village and fought him, she was once again sacrificing herself for everyone she loved. Perhaps she didn't have his strength. Maybe she wasn't gifted with exceptional intelligence but she could still be useful. Even if he never actually said he loved her, Hinata was content in knowing that her love was pure. And that she had lived and died protecting him.

Then, everything was in reverse.

He saved her once again. And together they were able to overcome their foe.

With the moon as a backdrop, there was never a moment where she, unbelievably, fell even deeper.

It was all worth it.

* * *

 _When Karui falls in love…_

On a mental level, many things were a game to Karui, and nothing has bigger stakes than the game of love. Playing at her own leisure, she placed her pieces precisely, never skipping a beat or making a false move.

But her light hearted approach to relationships doesn't mean that she fell in love easily. She was an advocate of "tough love". Her comrades respected and feared her fiery will. She's very loyal to her friends, in that way he was similar.

Compared to her other teammate, Samui, she is not very feminine. It doesn't take long for her to notice his teammate Ino Yamanaka was the pinnacle of femininity and girlish charm. In fact, the girls in Konoha seemed gentler on average. She wonders if she's too much of a tomboy for him.

He is the kindest man she's ever met. He's strong. And although he is self-conscious about his weight, she truly believes that a real man should be able to eat. In the beginning, she wasn't entirely confident in her ability to gain his attention. But in the end she accepted the fact that there was no way she could change herself for the sake of another person. Karui wasn't conventional.

Everyone thought it was strange when they ended up together. It wasn't because they were from different villages, she knew that much for sure. His teammate was involved with a girl from Suna and nobody batted an eye. Truthfully, it was probably the suddenness of it all. She didn't care.

Why would anyone wait around once they've found true love?


	2. When a Man Falls in Love

Naruto

In a sense, he guessed he had always liked her. Not in the way he did now, but there had been something in his heart that had set her apart, singled her out from others since they were young.

He was so used to being ignored, met with anger by total strangers but she was the first person his age to try and get close. As he made friends, new bonds and connections, she stayed the same. At the time, he had been so happy to have people around him. He was so starved for any kind of attachment that he had dismissed her feelings.

Blind, he couldn't forgive himself. She had always been there in the shadows, silently cheering for him, never blaming or seeing him as anything but himself. His heart knew before his mind did, on a subconscious level.

He could trust her with his life; she had been prepared to sacrifice hers. That was the thing about her; she was so selfless, almost to a fault. Truly, she was beautiful inside and out.

He had never taken the time to see her for who she really was. And it was so much more than the shy, sweet girl who everyone thought they knew. It was embarrassing how much prompting he had needed to see her, how everyone else but him was aware of her affections. That mission changed everything for him.

She was everything people thought: caring, poised, forgiving, soft spoken but she was also determined, fierce and unwavering in her desire to retrieve her sister.

Looking out over the ruins of that old village was when it hit him. His feelings for her went beyond friendship. He must have looked foolish, staring at her unabashedly as she looked out past the horizon, hair blowing in the wind.

To him, there was no one else. Even after all of the confusion, his heart being crushed when he thought she had chosen another, he had decided to fight for her.

He knew she would have done the same.

* * *

Sasuke

He didn't have time for connections with people. There was too much that needed to be done. He needed to become stronger, to avenge his family and for himself. A bond, that's where all this pain had originated from and he couldn't risk that again, he wasn't sure he'd survive it.

He wanted to be the best, he wanted to succeed and that's why he compared himself to all other worthy opponents. His teammates were annoyances at first. They weren't strong; they might have been the weakest shinobi he had ever he was quickly made to recognize that Naruto Uzumaki was a force to be reckoned with, maybe not in terms of strength but in will.

And her, he had also under estimated her ability.

Confliction was a very common and persistent feeling he had. She annoyed him, not because she was weak or naive but because she was determined, unrelenting in her belief in him. He could play it off, but every time she complimented his abilities, defended his actions, some forgotten feeling arose in his chest. But it wasn't enough to change his need for revenge.

And it wasn't enough to stop him from crushing her heart when he abandoned the village.

In the years he was gone, he pushed down the images and memories of his team. He never expected to be fighting alongside them again. The fourth shinobi war at been the climax of his emotional strife. It was his one last ditch attempt to ignore all of his innermost feelings and he lost. Naruto was never an enemy. And she did mean something to him. They were family.

He was impressed by her strength and how she applied herself to work. So changed, they all were, that it was hard to believe they could fall back into their old routines. She had grown. But there was still a semblance of the girl he had known before, the one that had always given him the benefit of the doubt.

And he knew that when they stood outside of the gates, he would have to find himself, reconnect with what he had lost.

Partially to give his mind some peace, but mostly so that he could be someone worthy of her.

* * *

Shikamaru

It happened very slowly. His younger self would have said it was something akin to watching a horrible accident, the end result was clear and it was horrifying but there was no stopping it. His childish ideals were impractical but he still firmly believed she was as troublesome as the first time he laid eyes on her.

However, she was troublesome in all the right ways; it was infuriating at times. Her words were crass but the conversation was stimulating. She was abrupt but everything she did had purpose. There was almost never any second guessing when it came to how she was feeling.

She never tried to seem mysterious or unobtainable. She was straightforward and to the point.

Against all odds, they were brought into each other's company again and again. By mere coincidence, they learned more about the other than either would have felt comfortable with disclosing on their own. He had cried in front of her. She had been forced to rely on his tactical skills. In the past, he thought they couldn't have been more different. Though it doesn't happen very often, he can admit he was wrong.

People commented on how they complimented each other long before they admitted it to themselves. Regardless of their occasional squabbles and banter, they got along extraordinarily well for two proclaimed 'just allies'. Their common ideals and way of thinking made the transition from ally to friend seamless.

His feelings for her were always there, nagging underneath the surface.

It was difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when he had completely fallen. But, if he had to, it might be when she had saved him in the country of silence. That uninhibited smile she had flashed him after saving his life once again.

He couldn't lie to himself anymore.

* * *

Sai

There was no one who would deny that he was horrible with emotions and social cues. His naivety often got him in trouble with strangers and friends alike. Despite how hard it was to discern the feelings of others, he tried.

The last thing he wanted was to go back to how things used to be.

He couldn't quite explain the feelings he felt for his friends and didn't really understand how they affected him but he knew someone who would. He thought that her ability to talk and interact with everyone nothing short of amazing. She could change her tone and way of speaking at the drop of a hat, depending on who she was with.

And for whatever reason, she had agreed to take him on as a student.

Those days that she would take the time to meet with him he woke up with a strange buzz in his stomach; excitement is what she called it. Unlike everyone else, she never made him feel awkward. Other people would always wait for him to fill a silence, stand by for some type of explanation he couldn't give, as questions to which he had no answer. She would simply take charge of a conversation or change the subject for him.

She had no problem being loud, getting angry or crying in front of people. Those qualities might deter someone else but he was fascinated. And he was also drawn into the other side of her. When she laughed and joked, he felt like he just might understand emotions a little better.

The raw emotions that she willingly showed everyone made him fall for her.

* * *

Chouji

He knew was in love with her before he could muster up the courage to confess.

He had been so sure that his feelings were unreciprocated. It was hard to imagine someone like her would ever be interested in him. There was no question, in his mind, that he was the least attractive member of his team. No matter what others said, he was still self-conscious.

There was an old saying that stated 'love is blind' but he wasn't sure if he believed it was true.

However, he had to take that chance, no matter what other people may think or say. He realized that they weren't well matched in appearance but they did have a great many things in common when it came to the things they liked and their goals.

Similar to him, she would be very happy to never fight again; although they both agreed that missions were okay. She never made fun of his appetite, in fact, she ate pretty well herself but nowhere near his level.

From the first time they met, there had been a connection. And their chemistry had to have been strong to transcend villages. He fell for her because she was strong in all the ways he wasn't. They were yin and yang.

It was like a great meal.

The ones you really remembered had some unexpected ingredient or spice. And the fusion of the flavours, two things no one would think to put together, is what made it the best.


End file.
